We’ve found the oldest star in the known universe – and it’s right on our galactic doorstep

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Astronomers have discovered the oldest living star in the (known) universe — and, remarkably, it’s situated right on our galactic doorstep, just 6,000 light years away, well within the Milky Way. The star, which has the abbreviated name of SM0313, was born 13.6 billion years ago — just 100 or 200 million years after the Big Bang (and a whopping 400 million years before the previous record breaker). It is believed that SM0313 is an elusive Population II star — a star that was formed from the remnants of one of the universe’s very first supernovae. By using SM0313’s spectrographic fingerprint as a baseline, we will hopefully be able to find more ancient stars, eventually allowing us to build up a better picture of what actually happened during (and before?) the Big Bang.

SM0313 (full designation SMSS J031300.36-670839.3) was first spotted by the Australian National University’s Siding Spring Observatory’s SkyMapper Telescope, which is in the process of mapping out a billion stars, galaxies, and asteroids in the southern sky. The Magellan Telescopes in Chile then followed up with some high-resolution imagery. As the astronomers took a closer look at the images, they noticed something rather odd: SM0313 contains almost no iron — less than one ten millionth of the iron found in our local Sun, in fact. (Read: 9 gigapixels, 84 million stars: Peer into the world’s most detailed photo of the Milky Way.)

The remnants of Cassiopeia A, a massive supernova that occurred about 11, 000 light years away from us

As you may know, our current understanding of the formation of the universe (i.e. galaxies, stars, planets) is that supernovae play a very central role. Basically, the theory is that the Big Bang produced vast amounts of hydrogen, helium, and small amounts of lithium. All of the matter in the universe, and all of the matter that will ever be in the universe, is derived from that initial pool of three elements. After a few thousand years, as the universe started to cool, dense regions of hydrogen started to coalesce under gravity — and in some cases, if they became dense enough, a fusion reaction would begin. Thus, the the universe’s first stars were born. These early stars fused hydrogen into helium — but more importantly, when they went supernova, they produced the first instances of carbon, and traces of heavier elements like iron. Slowly but surely, through repeated cycles of star formation and supernovae, the universe started to fill up with heavier elements, eventually resulting in the formation of metal-rich stars and planets like our Sun and Earth. (Read: Supernova explodes nearby in the Cigar Galaxy, but don’t worry, we’re safe.)

SM0313, however, is almost pure hydrogen and helium, with almost no heavy elements at all. This indicates that it’s a Population II star — a star that was formed very early in in the universe’s history, from the remnants of the very first stars (so-called Population III stars, which are hypothetical and thought to be long extinct). SM0313 contains some carbon, and light metals like lithium, magnesium, and calcium, but that’s it. This is surprising to astronomers, because they thought that first-generation supernovae produced a lot of iron. “This indicates the primordial star’s supernova explosion was of surprisingly low energy. Although sufficient to disintegrate the primordial star, almost all of the heavy elements, such as iron, were consumed by a black hole that formed at the heart of the explosion,” said Stefan Keller, operational scientist of the SkyMapper Telescope. [Research paper: doi:10.1038/nature12990 – “A single low-energy, iron-poor supernova as the source of metals in the star SMSS J031300.36−670839.3”]

While surprising astronomical finds are always nice, it’s even more striking when that discovery is in your own backyard. SM0313 is located just 6,000 light years away from Earth, in the southern constellation of Dorado. If you had a large’ish telescope, you could see it in the night sky yourself. We’re not entirely sure how this star — aged at 13.6 billion years — ended up in the Milky Way (which is roughly 13.2 billion years old). One theory, according to Keller, is that SM0313 was formed in an “isolated gas blob,” which was later absorbed by our rapidly expanding Milky Way.

Tagged In

I can’t read the full article as I’m not at work where I have access to nature, but do they really claim this is the oldest known star? Because HD 140283 (which is super close by at 190 light years) has 13.6B years as its lower age limit (the middle of it’s age estimate is actually older than the estimated age of the universe, but both of those are based on modeling things we’ve never seen before, so who knows which one is the most wrong), and its characteristics have been studied a lot more in depth considering its relative closeness to earth.

It must read, “the oldest star YET.” Because the cosmos is every mysterious and always comes up with surprises. They can declare that they have found the oldest known star until now. Tomorrow, who knows what else will come into our field of view!

Sebastian13

…in the KNOWN universe. Says right so in the title.

Pickybugger

What i don’t understand about half of these observations and claims to ‘know’ something is that if an object is x amount of light years away (and light travels at light speed) then who’s to say if that object even still exists and all we are seeing is the light traveling toward us from years ago… especially in the case of other galaxies where they state ‘facts’ about it, it may have imploded, exploded, expanded or just dissipated millions of years ago for all we know. And stars that have ‘just’ gone super nova, exploded hundreds, thousands, millions or billions of years before we could even possibly make any observations. All I’m getting at is its not seen in real time so why don’t they make that clearer in their public statements.

Multiverse

Well I doubt the important thing is how old the star is, but more importantly how old the Universe is. You may often read that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, but this star could show it to be older, whether the star still exists or not.

For example, if I met the oldest person in the world, I wouldn’t marvel at how old he or she were, I would ask about what life was like when he or she was a kid.

Pickybugger

You have got a good point. I don’t doubt that there is a wealth of information to be gained from studying the data gathered from these astronomy research projects.

After all the better we understand our environment the better we can manipulate it to suit our means. And the faster we can comprehend and learn form that information, the sooner we can adapt our methodologies, technologies and life style so that we don’t destroy our planet and hopefully find an equilibrium in which we can co-exist with other forms of life in a symbiotic relationship.

Once we achieve that on earth we increase our chances of successfully expanding the reach of life into the universe. However until we (humans) have learned not to destroy our habitat but instead be a force of good on earth and indeed the universe, I don’t believe we should have the power to influence it. One comparison made of the human race was with that of a virus killing its host.

The goal should be to become procreative not destructive. My hope is that one day population will not be limited by space or resources as the universe potentially has all that we will ever need, so ensuring healthiness and extending the lifespan of the individual will no longer have limitations or be seen as a bad thing and we can then spread life without negative repercussions.

Manav Aswal

YEHA U R RIGHT BUDDIES..WE CAN MNIPULATE THE STUDIES TO HAVE GOOD IMPACTS ON HUMAN ENVIRONMENT..NO MATTER HOW OD THE STAR IS BUT ITS REAL PROPERTY CAN MAKE US UNDERSTAND THE NATURE AND THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENTAL BALANCE.

Hubertus Bellend

YEAJ

I THINK UR ON TO SUMTHING BUDDY. OR ON SOMETHING

Larry D Andrews

You guys are funny.

Don Chandler

When one looks in the mirror, they should see a great ape. It’s as obvious as the nose on our face. If you look with great scrutiny, you will find that some of the hairiest humans best resemble apes. And apes do have a sense of humor and know how to laugh, even at their own expense.

Don Chandler

When one looks in the mirror, they should see a great ape. It’s as obvious as the nose on our face. If you look with great scrutiny, you will find that some of the hairiest humans best resemble apes. And apes do have a sense of humor and know how to laugh, even at their own expense.

chuck allen

I have a certificate that says I own that star.

making_pie

Big Bang? LOL fuck off with your moronic theories dipshits.

giantslor

Obvious troll is obvious

Marino Mangone

I will sound cynical, but unless every single star has been observed how would scientist truly know?
And would this imply that the Milkyway galaxy is the oldest of galaxies, because would this be the case in able to contain (house) the oldest star?
And would there even be such a thing as an oldest star, because isn’t everything always becoming, and everything from the beginning until know contains everything from the beginning, or is the point of the “big bang” still erupting energy/matter?
Would the energy that created all, be the same energy today, as it will be tomorrow and in days gone past, and all is just a form of energy is it not?

Don Chandler

The article helps answer most of your questions:

On oldest star:

“SM0313, however, is almost pure hydrogen and helium, with almost no heavy elements at all. This indicates that it’s a Population II star — a star that was formed very early in in the universe’s history, from the remnants of the very first stars (so-called Population III stars, which are hypothetical and thought to be long extinct).”

–So know, it’s not the oldest star ever, it’s the “oldest star known.” The oldest stars ever are long gone. The oldest are called population III–and they are conjecture.

On where it came from:

“We’re not entirely sure how this star — aged at 13.6 billion years — ended up in the Milky Way (which is roughly 13.2 billion years old). One theory, according to Keller, is that SM0313 was formed in an “isolated gas blob,” which was later absorbed by our rapidly expanding Milky Way.”

–being cynical of science is perhaps too harsh, being skeptical would be a healthy trait in any scientist. Saying you are “not entirely sure” indicates conjecture on how the star got into the galaxy. You’re in good company. You just need to take some science courses or read more science stuffs.

On total energy:

I think total energy remains constant in the universe. But in any local system, energy is lost. A lot of the suns energy goes out of the solar system but it remains in the universe. I don’t think the big bang is on going, just its after effects. My question is what happens when all the galaxies are consumed by their black holes and things cease to twinkle.

I’m like you, lots of questions. Not an expert. But I do trust scientists. But they do bite off more than they can chew ;)

Alan Cross

Here’s a wild and silly (but fun) idea… perhaps this isn’t an old star. Perhaps this star is from the same generation as our own. Perhaps this reason this star is devoid of heavier elements is because it’s been strip mined. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

Juan Manuel Borrero

Our ability to determine the iron content in stars is pretty limited. Even in the Sun, where we have the best observations and models, we cannot determine it with good accuracy. For instance Asplund et al. claim it’s 7.43 dex, while Blackwell et al. say it is 7.50 dex. Problem is that the “dex” scale is a logarithmic scale, so a difference of 0.07 dex actually corresponds to an error of 25 %. I suspect that for this star they just found, the error will be larger than that, since the observations are of less quality. Therefore: the value of 13.6 billion year should come with an error bar and I am pretty sure that error bar would be about 5-10 billion years. Conclusion: while the study may be interesting in itself, the title of the study is typical Nature or Science hubris, created for advertising purposes.

David Gillies

Contra the article, carbon is not primarily produced in supernovas, nor are most of the light elements. They are liberated into the cosmos to form new stars and planets in supernovas, yes, but normal stellar evolution is quite capable of making carbon (q.v. triple alpha process). Even heavier elements (past iron and all the way up to bismuth) can be created during a star’s lifetime via the s-process of neutron capture.

http://www.newforestobservatory.com/ Greg Parker

Exactly my belief David, so either we are both wrong – or the writer of the article has not read any elementary textbooks on stellar structure and the formation of the elements.

David Gillies

Or the astrophysics lecturer in the stellar nucleosynthesis portion of my physics degree was lying.

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